The Official Blog of Bobs and Lolo

‘Tis the season to celebrate family and friends and reflect on a year past while at the same time beginning to dream about the start of a new one. As we look back on all of our musical adventures throughout 2008, we want to thank all of you - our friends and family - for your amazing support and encouragement. You have played a huge part in giving us the opportunity to do what we love and allowing us to make a positive impact with music, movement and make-believe for the kids that have loved us in return.

Thank you for giving us the best present ever! We are excited about what 2009 may hold and look forward to sharing in the adventures with all of you.

Happy holidays and best wishes to all of you for the New Year!

xoxo
Bobs & Lolo

A quick note to let you know that we will be on the air with Stephen Quinn today at 3:45pm (Pacific Time). We’ll be chatting about our new album, sharing some stories about our recent road trip to Alberta and maybe even having a song or two featured!

You can listen live at http://www.cbc.ca/onthecoast/ or stop by later to check out a recording of the live feed!

We’d love to have you tune in:)

Bobs & Lolo

Nothing takes the chill off some wintry weather like a little dancing. Join us at one or more of our upcoming shows to dance your way through December! We’ll be introducing a few tunes from our new album, Action Packed and mixing in some classic B&L songs as well as everyone’s favourite holiday hits. Click here to view our upcoming events calendar.

The Action Packed CD has been in stores for just over three weeks now and the rave reviews keep rolling in…

“…these tunes are super fun and inventive and, best for parents, really well played. From the “get your heart pumpin’” chorus of the title track to the importance of warming-up (”Muscles”) and the blues rockin’ “The Right Track,” this is tuneage for toddlers that can’t miss.” - Stuart Derdeyn, The Vancouver Province

“It’s here!  Our beloved Bobs & Lolo never cease to amaze us parents.  Action Packed features upbeat songs with many teaching opportunities that we actually want to play in the car (without the kids…).” - Urbanmommies.com, Your Online Baby Resource 

We’ve received a lot of community support recently in light of our new album release, particularly from families, media and a number of our favourite mommy blog sites. There’s a lot of information out there and sites like savvymom.com, babyvibe.ca and yoyomama.ca are great at filtering out what’s really important for kids and parents. We recently discovered a new fav when we met JB – mom and founder of Soapbox Mama.  Soapbox Mama is a place for moms to share their knowledge, list their opinions and express their ideas – be sure to check it out!

Finally, with holiday shopping high on the radar these days, we wanted to drop a not so subtle hint about how great our CDs are as stocking stuffers (insert shameless plug!), and we also wanted to recognize a few of our new retail partners! Congratulations to Hippy Grandma – BC’s newest online eco-tique – for their recent launch, and special thanks to Fresh! Baby for introducing our music to the Penticton community. For a full list of our supporting retail partners, please click here.

Thanks again to everyone who’s joined us at our recent shows. We’ve had an exciting few weeks serving as the “opening act” for the seasonal VIP himself, Santa, and we look forward to continuing the celebrations over the next month. Hope to see you soon!

Bobs & Lolo

Action Packed is available now!

Bobs & Lolo deliver action packed fun for families with the release of their highly-anticipated third album. Action Packed features 12 original songs such as The Right Track, Snappy Snacks and Friends which are geared at connecting children to behaviours that positively impact themselves, their friends and the world around them.

Special thanks to all of the guest musicians including Mario Vaira (guitars, bass, keyboards, banjo, harmonica and more), Charles Currie Creelman (piano), David Spidel (upright bass), Ryan Stewart (drums), Chad Taylor (trumpet), Jess Vaira (backing vocals) and Kavie Toor (train conductor).

Bobs & Lolo CDs and DVDs are sold at a number of Canadian and US stores and at all live shows. For a list of upcoming live performances, please click here. For a list of supporting retailers, please click here.  

This post is long overdue and so much has happened since our trip through Alberta and some interior regions of BC that we were almost inclined to skip writing this. But, we had such an amazing time in Calgary and Cranbrook that we just couldn’t bring ourselves to not share some stories and pics!

First off, a huge thank you to everyone in Calgary who came out to our shows! We had a really great time and were overwhelmed by the warm reception and crowds at the Outdoor Resource Centre, Indigo (Signal Hill) and the Haysboro Community Centre. Speaking of the Haysboro event, we definitely need to send out a huge thank you (as well as some cyber hugs!) to the Tait Family for not only organizing a SOLD OUT concert, but for also opening their home to us during our stay. The topper is that the Tait’s didn’t know us at all other than having seen us perform once at the Vancouver Aquarium last spring. You guys are family now!

We ended up with a little bit of time to explore while in Calgary and took a short nature walk along the Glenmore Reservoir. We definitely enjoyed seeing all of the Canada Geese and did a little impromptu “goose dance” on the path in the spirit of our Honk for Canada song!

While we were sad to leave all of our new friends in Calgary, we were very excited about our first performances in Cranbrook. Our visit was coordinated by two amazing women (Tanis & Bridie) who own a children’s boutique in town called Bumble Tree. We were absolutely blown away by their hospitality. Check out the welcome goodies we discovered after checking into our hotel room!! Our first “swag”!

Thanks again to everyone for all of your support on our crazy musical adventures!

Bobs & Lolo

Our mini-tour in British Columbia and Alberta has definitely started off on a high note! With more than 1200 kilometers covered and 7 shows down, we’ve definitely set a crazy pace for the first part of our tour. The adventures began in Vancouver with our first challenge being the task of fitting all of our gear into the car!

We eventually got everything to fit, and our first stop landed us in Kelowna, BC for a couple of shows at The Natural Baby Shop. A huge thank you to Angie for hosting us for our debut performances in the Okanagan! We’re looking forward to returning to the region for the Okanagan Children’s Festival next spring.

We tackled the long drive to Edmonton the following day - 10 hours! We’ve already completed 5 performances in the city, and we are having a great time introducing our music to families all around town. Highlights of our visit so far include:

1. Loads of new faces!
2. Fabulous singing & dancing!
3. Wonderful hospitality from the Chapters/Indigo staff!
4. Whitemud Drive - we’ve been driving that route A LOT!
5. West Edmonton Mall!
6. Crisp, frosty mornings and gorgeous, sunny skies!

We are really enjoying our mini-concerts at the local Chapters and Indigo stores. Special thanks to all the families that have come out to join in on the fun! We’re looking forward to our next stop in Calgary…more stories and photos to come soon!

We’re looking forward to our next musical adventures!

Bobs & Lolo

P.S. Special thanks to Isaiah (West Edmonton Mall) for taking the time to come up after the show and thank us for “coming to Canada”. You’re still making us smile today:)

At the top of our list of newsworthy tidbits to share with you is the upcoming release of our new album, Action Packed – a rather fitting title given the nature of our lives these days! Action Packed features 12 original songs geared at connecting kids to behaviors (i.e. actions!) that positively impact themselves, their friends and the world around them. The songs touch on themes of literacy, healthy eating, fitness, teamwork and more. We really enjoyed writing the new tunes and are excited to share them with all of you. We both feel that the new songs will really complement the music from our first two albums - Sea Notes (2004) and Musical Adventures (2006). Check out a sneak peek of the new album cover below and be sure to keep an eye on our blog (or subscribe to email notifications) for updates on the final release date, as well as a preview of some of the song titles and a chance to get an early listen to one of the new songs!

We also wanted to share some news about an exciting fact we discovered while reading last weekend’s newspaper. Did you know that Sarah McLachlan is a fan of our music?? Apparently, she even quoted some lines from one of our songs during a recent interview with The Vancouver Province’s Arts & Entertainment reporter, Stuart Derdeyn! We’re a little blown away by this one!

Bobs & Lolo

We recently received a very beautiful letter that inspired us to write this blog. The letter was from a mother with two young daughters, and it definitely reinforced the power of positive role models for children and the strength of friendship. Our special thanks to Yasuko for sharing her thoughts with us…

Many of you already know that “Bobs & Lolo” first met at a Girl Guide Camp on Vancouver Island. After a weekend of campfire sing-a-longs, delicious snappy snacks and silly pranks, we knew we were destined to be best buds forever! We often share stories from the early years of our friendship at our live shows, and we were extremely flattered to learn that Yasuko found our story inspiring enough to take the time to send a letter on our behalf to the Girl Guides of Canada’s head office in Toronto, Ontario.

As a result of Yasuko’s support and initiative, the Girl Guides of Canada organization is currently promoting a Bobs & Lolo Prize Contest. Click here for more information about the contest and to learn more about the organization. The prize package includes a Sea Notes CD, Musical Adventures CD, On Your Feet DVD, Bobs & Lolo t-shirts and more! Contest deadline is September 30, 2008.

Before we sign off from this one, we also want to give a big shout out to our Moms for being such incredible role models to us…as well as being two of our first Guiders! We love you Momma Pond and Momma Hardy!!

So we travel on together,
Through the bright and stormy weather,
Striding forth in work and game,
We are joined by the Guiding spirit,
The world is ne’re the same
- Sisters in Guiding (3rd verse)

And one more final treat…Lolo in her Brownie uniform (circa 1985):

We have two great events scheduled in the Lower Mainland this weekend, so if you’re looking for an escape from the house, please join us for some musical adventures!

Saturday, August 30th
InStorage and Kids Help Phone Community Concert
10am-2pm, 1311 East Kent Avenue N, Vancouver BC
FREE admission: bouncy castles, facepainting, hot dogs and refreshments, draw prizes and more! Donations to the Kids Help Phone gratefully accepted. Bobs & Lolo will be performing with their band at 11am and 12:30pm.
For more information, please call 604-323-2629

Sunday, August 31st
Party on the Pier
11am-3pm, Foot of Lonsdale, North Vancouver BC
FREE Admission: This unique marine-themed celebration includes entertainment and activities for the whole family. Enjoy a wide variety of musical guests, roving performers, an amazing stilt walker, fantastic face painters, the Seaspan tugboat ballet and tours of the harbour. Bobs & Lolo will be performing at 12pm.
For more information, please visit www.cnv.org.

Photo taken at the Harmony Arts Festival - August 9, 2008